Creative agency and artist managers Hugo & Marie is run by Jennifer Marie Gonzalez, who works as the representative and producer, along with her husband and partner Mario Hugo Gonzalez, who works as the agency’s Creative Director. Together they have carved out a sector of the design world, focusing on their carefully curated list of illustrators and designers. Together hey’ve worked with clients like Nowness, Stella McCartney, and Dolce & Gabbana to Microsoft, Wired Magazine and Converse.

Their dedication to the whole product has seen them work, direct, and collaborate on some incredible projects. At times they come across more as fine artists than commercial designers, which they say is an important part of their practice as well as for creatives as a whole. It’s through this process that they have become more than just a creative agency, they’ve situated themselves almost as a brand taking great care of every aspect – so much so that I think it’s fair to say companies seek them out for that “Hugo & Marie look.”

I spoke to them Jennifer and Mario to get an insight into the work they both do and how Hugo & Marie came to be.

Illustrator, Artist and doodler Scott Campbell has just released the follow up to the successful Great Showdowns book – The Return. It builds upon it’s prequel and again is filled with classic defining Pop Culture moments. It takes on the same competitiveness as a Where’s Wally (or Waldo for you guys across the sea) book where you’re instantly trying to guess the scene as quickly as possible. With no verbal clues you’d have to be a real film buff to get them all correct but even if you don’t the book reads like a more playful version of a coffee table book.

I spoke to Scott recently on the origins of this series and his background in design below.

Entitled Murakami’s Monster Magic, the photos were shot by Jason Schmidt and feature model Angela Lindvall as well as Murakami’s cast of movie monsters. The series is pretty fantastic and surreal, a beautiful woman walking around with these bizarre creatures in a variety of random Los Angeles locations – wandering through In-N-Out, lounging at the pool at The Standard Hollywood, or walking through Beverly Hills.

Somehow, because our products are used by more than one person, you don’t accept “OK, there is this polar opinion and this opinion,” because basically then what can happen—and I have seen this in other places—what can happen is that energy then is spent in the debate, rather than the belief that, you know what? We have an ambition that is real because we believe there is a solution. There is an idea that actually transcends that debate.

I was reading this interview with Clive Thompson in the NY Times last night and he’s got a new book out called “Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.” The book touches upon the idea that technology isn’t making you dumb, it’s actually supplementing the way our brains already work.

You talk a lot about memory in your book. Are we augmenting our memories with computers, or are we replacing them?

I would say we are augmenting them. When I started the book I was genuinely worried that I was losing my memory to Google, but the more I studied the way that everyday memory works, the more I realized how much we already rely on other outside sources — books, Post-it notes, etc. — but also other people to remember things. We are social thinkers, and we are also social rememberers, we use our co-workers, our partners and our friends to help us retrieve the details about things that they they are better at remembering than we are. And they’ve used us in the same way. Memory has always been social. Now we’re using search engines and computers to augment our memories, too.

The interview was good enough to get me to purchase the book, really looking forward to reading this. And how great is that cover? Simple but effective.

The term Independent Publisher is barely vast enough to cover the amount of work and different thinking caps you need to put on to be one. In the day of the ‘Print is dead’ generation publishers are increasingly taking more and more control of their end product ensuring that it’s not just a magazine you’re picking up but rather an experience and escape from the real world – not to mention the digital world. No other publication embodies this more than the perfectly put together children’s magazine Anorak.

Since it’s inaugural issue in 2006 it has been able to capture the hearts of children before they are consumed by technology and set free the square eyes of adults after they’ve lost their sense of childish abandon. It’s a magazine that’s had incredible success and after 29 issues (and not to mention numerous other projects) it’s still going strong. I spoke to Founder and Editor Cathy Olmedillas about her start with Anorak Magazine ahead of the release of their BIG BOOK OF ANORAK, an annual 224 page compendium of stories, activities and educational pieces that ran in the early (and now sold out) editions of Anorak.

The first time I came across Erik Olson’s work was when my sister showed me an image she had found online, it had no credit and wasn’t linked to the original painter. I put on my detective hat and set about tracking it down, doing a reverse image search that lead me to Canadian Painter Erik Olson. It’s something about the way his subjects are suspended within these bold backgrounds and the frenzied and warped feature, as if they’ve been framed in some sort of swirl and blur movement, that struck me and when the time came to put together a list of creatives I wanted to talk to; he was high up on my list.

I was also fascinated by his first solo show that was held in an abandoned gas station, I love this kind of ingenuity and it is this attitude that, it seems, has got the ball rolling for him and has seen him exhibited across Canada, America and even a spot in the UK.

I can’t remember how I first met Designer and Art Director Sue Murphy but it was some time ago; and every now and then I check back on her work to see what she’s up to and find her in a different country. Born in Ireland she’s since racked up a fair share of air miles studying in Savannah, working in Amsterdam and of right this moment working as an Art Director for Ogilvy and Mather in New York. To begin this series of Creative Interviews I thought who better to begin with than the freckly, funny and flighty Sue.

She was also kind enough to takes some snaps of the office in New York and comment on them. I always love seeing these sorts of places, I can’t quite explain why but I find it interesting to see the environment that great work is created in.